Hawley Negotiates Inclusion of STOP CSAM Act in Senate NDAA

STOP CSAM Act Threatens Everyone’s Online Safety and Security - Internet Society

The Internet Society calls on the Senate Judiciary Committee to address risks in the STOP CSAM Act that pose an existential threat to the Internet and crucial security technologies that keep children and vulnerable people safe online.

STOP CSAM Only Harms Americans’ Privacy

2025.06_stop_csam_one_pager_.pdf

Arizona Governor Vetoes 'Protect Act' With New Consent Provisions

Arizona Governor Kate Hobbs on Friday vetoed HB 2133, the “Protect Act,” which would have imposed new requirements for adult content uploaded online.

Online Safety Bills Are Fueling a New Wave of Internet Censorship

State and federal bills seek to limit minors’ access to social media, but civil liberties advocates warn that the resulting online censorship threatens constitutional rights without delivering real safety.

Home | Protecting Kids Online

Our mission is to protect children and defend parental rights by equipping families and citizens with the tools to keep kids safe online. We oppose government surveillance disguised as child safety legislation and seek to build an informed, independent parent-led coalition to #ProtectKidsOnline.

OpenAI releases its framework for AI child safety policies.

The blueprint — created with the help of NCMEC and the Attorney General Alliance — is aimed at “modernizing laws” to address AI-generated CSAM, improving the reporting process, and building systems that interrupt exploitation attempts. [Link: Introducing the Child Safety Blueprint | https://openai.com/index/introducing-child-safety-blueprint/ | OpenAI]

Kids Online Safety Act

The Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSPA), known in the House, in some Senate versions, and commonly in the general public as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), is proposed legislation in the United States first introduced in the Senate in 2022. The bill aims to establish guidelines to protect minors from harmful material on social media platforms through a duty of care system and requiring covered platforms to disable "addicting" design features to minors.

Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis | United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary

United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Commission publishes guidelines on the protection of minors

On 14 July 2025, the Commission has published its guidelines on the protection of minors under the DSA to ensure a safe online experience for children and young people.

The "Segregate-and-Suppress" Approach to Regulating Child Safety Online

<div> In an effort to protect children online, regulators around the country and the world are enacting laws that compel Internet publishers to age-authenticat

Text - S.1748 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Kids Online Safety Act

Text for S.1748 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Kids Online Safety Act

Site Blocking and Age Verification for Twitter, Instagram, Snap and Twitch?: Age Verification Lobby Confirms it Wants Bill S-210 to Cover All Social Media Sites - Michael Geist

Bill S-210 - the Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act - burst onto the public scene late last year as a majority of the House voted for the bill at second reading, sending it to the Public Safety committee for review. The bill, which is the brainchild of Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne, was supported by the Conservatives, Bloc and NDP with a smattering of votes from backbench Liberal MPs (the cabinet voted against, signalling it is not supported by the government). The bill raises significant concerns with the prospect of government-backed censorship, mandated age verification to use search engines or social media, and a framework for court-ordered website blocking (I appeared before the Senate committee that studied by the bill in February 2022, arguing that “by bringing together website blocking, face recognition technologies, and stunning overbreadth that would capture numerous mainstream services, the bill isn’t just a slippery slope, it is an avalanche.”). In response to the public criticism of the bill, Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne has suggested that concerns about it extending to general purpose social media sites is overstated since the intent is to target adult content sites. Yet that is not what the bill provides as it applies to anyone who makes sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes:

Reading the Digital Safety Act with My Mastodon Admin Hat On

Back in 2024, I published a reading of the Online Harms Act from my perspective as an admin of a Mastodon instance. The Online Harms Act was a proposed Canadian bill meant to regulate social media to prevent harmful content, particularly hate speech and child abuse materials. While the Online Harms Act ultimately did not come to pass (due the proroguing of Parliament later that year), the Carney Liberal government is bringing much of it back with a new Digital Safety Act. In this post, I am also giving the new Act a look from the perspective of a Mastodon admin.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, addresses the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information about children collected from children through websites or other online services.

Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024

The Online Safety Amendment Act 2024 is an Australian act of parliament that prohibits minors under the age of 16 from holding an account on certain social media platforms. It is an amendment to the Online Safety Act 2021 and was passed by the Parliament of Australia on 29 November 2024. It imposes monetary penalties on social media companies that fail to take reasonable steps to prevent minors under 16 that are located in Australia from having accounts on their services.